by Caro Carson
It had been so long ago, close to twenty years now. Brooke rested her elbows on the high counter of the nurses’ station and let her head drop into her hands. For just a moment, she pressed her fingertips against her temples to relieve the stress. It was impossible to treat a four-year-old little girl and not think of her sister.
If those angry parents in room two only knew how much worse their lives could be, how much more serious their troubles could get. People should thank their lucky stars when their lives were normal. Boring. Routine. Brooke’s mother was right: security and predictability were the keys to a good life.
“Dr. Bamber asked that you give him a call when you have a moment,” the nurse at the desk said.
Brooke frowned. She wasn’t waiting on any radiology reports. “About which patient?”
The nurse, the blonde and single one from a few nights ago, beamed at her. “No patient. I think it’s personal.”
So, Tom was going to ask her out again, and he wasn’t waiting until chance brought them together to do it. He was predictable. He was exactly what she needed in her life, if she needed any male companionship at all.
The glass doors slid open. A patient arrived on a gurney, paramedics walking on either side. No eye candy. No one from Engine Thirty-Seven.
Brooke was annoyed at the way her heart had skipped a beat when the doors whooshed open. She was disappointed at her own disappointment. This little game of Zach roulette did not amuse her. She had a chance at normalcy and predictability and a perfectly nice date with a perfectly nice guy. She should be satisfied. She’d call Tom. Soon.
“I’m going to grab a quick cup of coffee,” she told the nurse.
The emergency two-way radio that resided permanently at the nurses’ station sounded. Another ambulance was on its way. She lingered and listened as the nurse communicated with the crew, until Brooke heard it was not Engine Thirty-Seven.
Impatiently, she pushed through the door into the kitchenette.
There Zach was, standing there as calm as could be, reading the work schedule pinned on the bulletin board. She hadn’t braced herself to see him, so the sight of him took her breath away. His hair, which had darkened to a medium brown over the winter, was once more becoming streaked by the sun now that warm weather had returned to Texas. His jaw was square, clean-shaven, and his uniform—
Zach wasn’t in uniform. Brooke had never seen him in anything but black. Now he wore a pale blue shirt, cuffed halfway up his forearms and tucked into his jeans. His boots were brown, not black, and they were cowboy boots, not steel-toed work boots. He looked about as delicious as a rugged man could look.
Brooke wished, with a sudden ferocity that knocked her off guard, that she could say to hell with logic and predictability and Tom and instead take a chance with Zach. What would it be like to let him make her laugh after hours instead of settling for a quick grin at work? To flirt, to tease, to touch a man without knowing where it would lead or how long it would last?
That would be dangerous living.
He glanced her way to see who had opened the door. When their eyes met, he smiled.
She nodded coolly. “What are you doing here? You’re not...” She gestured toward his jeans. “...working.”
“Looking for you, of course. I hoped you’d be done with your shift, and we could catch that drink.”
“It’s nine in the morning.”
“We could drink coffee.” He stepped closer to her, close enough that she could see how the blue of his shirt made the blue in his eyes more pronounced. Close enough that the quiet bass of his voice filled the air between them. “I know a vintage record store that has a coffee bar. They play heavy metal on vinyl, but they top your lattes with just a whisper of foam. If you were just coming off a hard night shift, it would be a great combination.”
“Oh.”
“I came in and checked the schedule yesterday. I thought you were working overnight and might need to wind down this morning, before going to bed.”
There was practically a purr in his voice. She narrowed her eyes in suspicion. Was he trying to seduce her at nine in the morning? Seduce her with heavy metal music played on vinyl records in one of Austin’s funky coffee shops? The man must not have any sense of what she was like as a person. She wasn’t the kind of woman who drank coffee in places like that.
Maybe I am. I’ve never tried it.
She leaned back against the wall, tucking her hands behind herself, in the small of her back. Away from him. “I switched shifts. I’ve got ten more hours today. I won’t be done until seven, if that.”
His easy grin said it was no big deal, nothing to worry about. He nodded toward the schedule on the wall. Her schedule. He hadn’t left anything to chance, after all.
“I see that. I’m covering a short shift today for a friend in an ambulance company, eleven to six. I can be showered and shaved and ready to take you out tonight when you get off at seven. Say yes.”
She hesitated. As flattering as it was that he’d apparently meant it when he’d said it wasn’t a joke and he really wanted to buy her a drink, he was still that playboy paramedic who flirted shamelessly with everything and everyone female.
She lifted her chin, wishing she weren’t so tempted to add herself to his fan club. “What if I said no?”
His smile didn’t slip, but he looked a little surprised at her question. “I’d be disappointed, but I understand long shifts. If you’re tired, you’re tired. I was matching up our schedules when you came in. I’m starting twenty-four hours tomorrow, but we could make it the day after tomorrow.”
“I meant what’s your plan B for tonight, if I can’t make it?”
He placed one hand on the wall near her head and leaned closer to her. That mostly-blue gaze never left her face. “I’d head over to the firehouse after work. Shower. Crash on the couch in front of some mindless sports.”
“Alone?”
He tilted his head a little to the side, studying her. “Yes, alone. I want to go out with you. If you’re unavailable, I don’t want to go out.”
She snorted a little, not the most ladylike sound, but her disbelief needed an outlet. “Be serious. If I said no, you’d get over that disappointment fast. You could take any other woman out for drinks. You’d have another date lined up before I could snap my fingers.”
He wasn’t smiling now. “Women aren’t interchangeable. If I want to spend time with you, then no one else will do.”
“I’ve watched you flirt with every woman you set eyes on for eight months.”
“That doesn’t mean I date every woman I see. When I’m interested in one woman, then she’s it.”
She did frown at that. “Really? Judging by your behavior around here, it’s been a long time since you decided one woman was enough.”
“I’d say it’s been four years. Almost five.”
That startled Brooke into silence. Such a specific answer—the man had his secrets, then. A past. It was hard to imagine Zach devoted to one woman four years ago.
“Are you divorced?” She felt as if she was venturing way too far into personal territory by asking him that, but wasn’t that information she should know about a man before she dated him?
She glanced at his free hand. No ring, no mark left by a ring. No sign that a woman had ever placed a gold band on that finger, claiming him.
“Never married,” he said curtly. He pushed away from the wall and leaned back against the counter, a casual pose that seemed much more like the Zach she knew. “Do you really think if you aren’t available, then I’m going to step into the hall and ask Mary Ellen instead?”
“Mary Ellen’s engaged.”
Zach’s easygoing smile returned. “Just one more reason I’d rather be with you.”
“What are the other reasons?”
“
Spend the evening with me, and I’ll tell you each one.”
Chapter Five
She’d said yes.
Brooke’s shift had started with two hours of misery, thanks to those miserable parents, but after seeing Zach in the break room, she’d been buoyed along by a sense of sweet anticipation, eight pleasant hours so far, all because she’d thrown caution to the wind and said yes.
Maybe she didn’t know herself as well as she’d always thought she did. Or maybe she’d been intrigued by a glimpse of a man who had layers that ran deeper than a handsome face and a quick, laughing wit. Or maybe...
Or maybe, it was just good, old-fashioned physical attraction. Zach had leaned over her, placed his hand on the wall near her head, and her body had responded. She could catalog all the classic signs of arousal. Blood vessels had dilated, breathing had deepened, heart rate had increased.
Incredibly, being around her had produced the same effects in Zach. She’d been staring into his blue-green eyes when she’d realized that his breathing had changed slightly, too. Since Brooke shined a penlight into patients’ eyes all day long, she’d noticed that the pupils of Zach’s eyes widened as she challenged him. That one telltale sign, a pupil dilation indicating an arousal of the autonomic nervous system which no one could fake, had given her more confidence than all the smiles he sent her way. She didn’t trust her own instincts, the ones that said this attractive man found her attractive, too, but she could trust science.
He was into her.
She was smiling at the thought even now. Just two more hours and her shift would end and her date would begin. The anticipation was intoxicating. Brooke bent her head over the patient’s chart and tried not to look as giddy as she felt inside. It was quite the emotional high to have a schoolgirl crush that was actually being returned. Endorphins, dopamine, serotonin.
She liked Zach Bishop, and he liked her back. Why had she fought that so hard? There was nothing bad about a little uptick in endorphins. How could she have so coldly considered choosing to spend her time with Tom Bamber for the sake of predictability?
The desk radio interrupted her thoughts. An ambulance was on its way in, transporting a patient who was already coding. She wiped the grin off her own face, feeling almost ashamed to be happy when others were not. She stuck her hands in the pockets of her white coat and listened while a nurse wrote the information being relayed.
The radio reported a white male, ninety-six years old, was en route. They were bagging him, using a balloon-like device to push air into his lungs. Defibrillation had failed to produce a heartbeat. Manual chest compressions were ongoing, and had been ongoing for the entire thirty-minute ambulance ride in from a distant ranch. Brooke knew they would still be ongoing when they arrived in an estimated ten minutes; the patient was not going to spontaneously recover. Whoever was forcing that heart to squeeze by pushing on the chest would have to keep pushing.
The last of Brooke’s buoyant emotions sank. It was time to do the hard work of her profession.
Ninety-six years old. A total of forty minutes of chest compressions before arrival. No one was immediately declared dead on arrival without every effort first being made, but the checklist of medical options was short in this situation.
Brooke was waiting in the crash room when they arrived. The paramedics told her the patient had been found in his bed when a family member brought his dinner tray to him. The first item on Brooke’s mental checklist was also the last: assess body temperature. The thermometer’s reading was repeated to be completely certain, but she knew any chance of resuscitation was gone. His body had cooled after he’d died in his sleep, peacefully, well before his family had noticed and called the ambulance. Brooke stepped back from the patient and formally announced the time of death.
That wasn’t the hard part of her job. Declaring a patient dead was something she was qualified to do.
But the next logical step was never easy. She had to inform the next of kin that their loved one was gone. Grief was an unpredictable monster, and no matter how she approached a deceased patient’s family, no matter how young or old the patient was, no matter how expected or unexpected the death was, the monster always landed a blow.
Brooke had learned to protect herself from it as much as possible. She always entered a room of waiting family members while wearing her white coat, a symbol of care and competence and authority which Brooke believed was reassuring to the family in a subconscious way. She shook hands, her polite yet serious demeanor generally the first step in preparing the family to hear the news she had to deliver. She did so as simply and concisely as she could, telling them when, and why.
Then the monster had its turn.
Each time, Brooke could only stand by and witness the assault. Whether the monster caused shocked silence or unrestrained wailing, Brooke stayed in the room. Inevitably, there would be additional questions about what had happened, and she was in the best position to explain why the body had failed, why a treatment had or hadn’t been attempted, or anything else the family wanted to know.
As the monster finished its first round of punches, someone would make the emotional request to view the body, or else someone would ask a practical question about funeral arrangements, and then Brooke knew it was time to leave the family in the competent hands of the hospital’s morgue attendants.
With her duty complete, she would return to the nurses’ station, pick up the next chart in sequence, and move on to her next patient. Laceration of the forearm. Evaluation of abdominal pain. More patients needed to be cared for, regardless of Brooke’s personal feelings, so there was no sense in giving in to her emotions. It was a routine she usually handled as well as anyone could.
Today should not have been different.
Brooke informed the family of the ninety-six-year-old patient that their loved one could not be revived. She waited for the first wave of grief to pass, then left the family when the hospital administrator arrived to handle the final arrangements.
It was time to move forward. Yet Brooke stood at the nurses’ station, and wondered why she felt shaky.
“Dr. Brown, can you take room four?” A nurse held out a clipboard, expecting Brooke to take it the way she always, always did.
Today, she hesitated.
Just give me a minute. I need a minute.
“I’ll complete this death certificate first,” Brooke said evenly.
“Oh. Sure.” After a second of hesitation, the nurse set down the clipboard and walked away.
Brooke’s hand felt stiff and ungainly—what on earth is wrong with me?—as she began filling out the form, taking care to keep her writing legible so the admin clerks wouldn’t transcribe any errors into the final legal document.
This death should not have been a difficult one, as these things went. The patient had lived a longer life than most people. His death had been painless, at home, and he’d clearly lived his last days surrounded by people who cared about him.
But today, Brooke was off balance. She’d made plans for tonight that were out of character. Her emotions weren’t entirely under control, so the monster had grazed her as it hit the patient’s family.
I wish Zach would walk in the door.
For one second, just one second, Brooke let herself imagine a man dressed in black, bigger and stronger than she was, ready to shoulder her worries and cares.
What a foolish thought. If anything, Zach was to blame for her sudden inability to handle the hardest part of her job. Because she’d felt this morning’s endorphin-fueled rush of attraction, this afternoon’s death seemed all the darker in contrast.
She’d failed to protect her emotional stability. She wasn’t usually incapacitated by grief, because she wasn’t usually extraordinarily happy, either. She should never have agreed to start seeing a man who affected her like Zach did.
Sh
e could fix that now. She could cancel her date with Zach. She could return Tom Bamber’s call.
She should use her head, not her heart. Or rather, she should use her head, and not her hormones. Her attraction to Zach was purely physical, surely.
Then surely it’s okay to go ahead and see him tonight. There’s no emotional attachment. It’s just physical chemistry. A little flirting with the biggest flirt of them all.
That was perfectly sensible, but her attraction to Zach didn’t feel purely physical. Her emotions were all stirred up every time she was near him, and that was unacceptable.
She looked at the clock. Six thirty. His shift had ended thirty minutes ago; hers had thirty minutes left. There was plenty of time to change plans. They’d exchanged phone numbers this morning. She should call him and cancel, for her own peace of mind. She could pack all her emotions, the good and the bad, into the neat little compartments in her head where they belonged, if she stopped anticipating time with Zach.
The door to the waiting room opened. Not the door to the large waiting room, which had check-in desks and televisions and children’s play areas. This was the door to the smaller waiting area, the one with four walls and soothing artwork and privacy, the one where the staff put the families of patients who were critical and might not survive.
The family of the deceased ninety-six-year-old began filing out. They’d followed the ambulance here in what must have been a small convoy of cars. Brooke had been surprised at the large cluster of adult children she’d had to shake hands with when she’d gone in to break the news. Now they were milling about, discussing who should leave, who would stay until the funeral parlor arrived, who needed coffee and where was the cafeteria, and had Bob had a chance to view the body yet? A broken little family, pulling itself back together, getting reorganized as families do.
Brooke kept her head down. She wrote faster, but she still heard the young girl’s voice. “Do I get to see Grandpa now?”
